Instead of the Thorn. Clara Louise Burnham

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      As the visitor stood there, a woman, bareheaded, stepped up from the grass upon the porch, and giving one glance from her prominent, faded eyes at the gray figure standing in the window, crossed the piazza to the front door, which was closed.

      Mrs. Porter, advancing, opened it, and came face to face with a scrawny little woman, who stood with her head apologetically on the side. Her temples were decorated with those plastered curls of hair known as "beau-catchers," and across the forehead it was strained back and caught in a comb set with large Rhinestones. Her red-and-green plaid calico dress was open girlishly at the throat, around which a red ribbon was tied with the bow in the back.

      "Why are they always thin here?" thought Maud Porter. "Is it eating fish? Do they never have to reduce?"

      "Oh, pardon me!" exclaimed the newcomer, with such an elegant lift of her bony shoulders that it twisted her whole body. "I expected to see Belinda – that is – pardon me! – Miss Barry."

      "She's in the kitchen just at present. Won't you come in?"

      The newcomer accepted with alacrity, her prominent eyes openly scanning Mrs. Porter's costume.

      "I wouldn't have thought of intruding had I supposed Miss Barry had a guest. I didn't notice Jerry brought anybody." Another writhe, and a rearrangement of a long necklace of imitation coral beads, which suffered against the red plaid.

      "Yes, he brought happy me," returned Mrs. Porter, wondering whether, with the chowder so imminent, she should ask this guest to be seated.

      The newcomer relieved her of responsibility by sinking into the nearest chair.

      "Comin' for the summer?" she asked hurriedly, as though she felt that her time was short.

      "I don't know. It's a place to tempt one, isn't it?"

      "The views is called wonderful," returned the other modestly. "Of course, 't ain't for us to call 'em sumtious, but artists hev called 'em sumtious."

      "They deserve any praise," was the reply, and Mrs. Porter gave the speaker her sweet smile.

      "It's very difficult, one might almost say comple-cated, for visitin' folks to find any place to reside on the Cape. We ain't got any hotel."

      Pen fails to describe the elegant action of shoulders and eyebrows which accentuated this declaration, and Mrs. Porter's smile broadened.

      "I've understood so," she replied.

      "My name's Benslow," said the visitor, casting an apprehensive glance toward the dining-room. "I've got one o' these copious houses with so much more room than I can use that sometimes I hev– I hev accawmodated parties. I suppose you're from the metrolopous."

      "Well, we think it is one. I'm from that wild Chicago!"

      "Oh, I s'posed it was Boston."

      Here Miss Barry entered, bearing a steaming tureen, which perfumed the atmosphere temptingly.

      "Hello, Luella," she said quietly.

      At the word the visitor started from her chair with guilty celerity, and brandished an empty cup she was carrying.

      "I hadn't an idea you was entertainin', Belinda, and you must excuse my walkin' right in on – on – "

      Miss Barry kept her eyes fixed imperturbably on the tureen, and turned to get a plate of crackers from a side table.

      "Mrs. Porter is my name," said the guest, taking pity on Miss Benslow's embarrassed writhings.

      "Oh, yes, on Mis' Porter. I just wanted to see if you could spare me a small portion of bakin' soda."

      "Why didn't you come to the back door as you do commonly?"

      "Why – why, the mornin' was so exhilaratin', I made sure you'd be watchin' the waves, and I thought it would expediate matters for me to come around front." An ingratiating smile revealed Miss Benslow's full set.

      "Just go right out and help yourself, Luella. You know where 't is, and you can let yourself out the back door. Come, Mrs. Porter, the chowder's good and hot."

      It was, indeed. Miss Benslow's prominent eyes rolled toward the white-clothed table as she passed it, and inhaled the tantalizing fragrance. She would presently go home and eat bits of cold mackerel with her old father, at the oilcloth-covered table in the kitchen. Neither he nor she was a "good provider."

      Miss Barry laughed quietly to herself as she and her guest sat down.

      "Luella did get ahead of me," she said appreciatively. "I don't know how she slid by. Her uniform never blends with the landscape, either. Perhaps she climbed under the lee of the rocks."

      "Oh, why does she wear those beads with that frock?" asked Mrs. Porter, accepting a dish of chowder.

      "I guess if we could find that out we'd know why she does lots of things," returned the hostess.

      "Simply delicious," commented Mrs. Porter, after her first mouthful. "Do show me how to do it, Miss Barry."

      "Surely I will; but serve it after an early start from Portland and a ride across country with the wind off the sea. That's the sauce that gives the finishing touch."

      "Why are all the people in Maine thin? Is it fish? You all have the best things to eat, yet you never get cushiony like us."

      Miss Barry cast a glance across at the round contours, so different from her own angles.

      "I think a bit of upholstery helps, myself," she remarked.

      "Now, that Miss Benslow – why, she's really – really bony."

      "Yes," responded Miss Barry, eating busily, "but she's got beauty magazines that's full of directions how to reduce, and she's delighted with her bones. Unlucky for her father, because she might do more cooking if she believed flesh was fashionable. Luella's dreadfully slack," added Miss Barry, sighing; "but so's her father, for that matter. He goes out to his traps twice a day, but he wouldn't mind his chicken-house if he lost the whole brood; and just so he has plenty of tobacco the world suits him all right. You know folks can just about live on this air."

      Mrs. Porter regarded her hostess thoughtfully. "Then," she said, "I don't believe their house would be a very good place to board."

      Miss Barry looked up suddenly. "Board!" she repeated explosively. Then, after a silent pause, she added, "Is that what Luella came over for?"

      "Probably not; but she mentioned – "

      "Yes, I guess she did. She saw Jerry bring you – "

      "No, she said she didn't see him bring me."

      Miss Barry snorted. "Luella says lots o' things beside her prayers, and if she uses the same kind o' language for them that she does for other folks, I doubt if the Almighty can understand her half the time. I often think the futurists ought to get hold of her and her clothes and her talk."

      Mrs. Porter laughed. "Perhaps she was born too soon."

      "Indeed she was for her own comfort. Luella's as sentimental as they make 'em, and she still feels twenty. Board with her, indeed! You'd reduce fast enough then, I assure СКАЧАТЬ